Thanks much for the info Peter...

;-)

Without making any publicity, what kind of SoundCard was used during Vegas4 developement ???
The Requirements specified on this Web Site only mentions that a "Windows compatible Card" is required, now 80% of people using Windows also use SoudBlaster products, but it seems that there are some compatibility issues here !!!

Could you tell me if an Audigy or Audigy 2 Card would be suitable enough to run Vegas 4 adequately ???

Thanks for your time...

We develope/test against MANY different cards.

It depends on the needs you have.

If you are doing Surround (5.1) mixing, then you need a card with drivers that expose 6 seperate channels as three different stereo pairs.

Peter

I recently dove head-first into this whole Surround thing, so I can tell you a couple of first-timer stories.

I first tried hooking Vegas up with my Soundblaster Audigy, using ASIO. It worked OK, except that Creative's drivers are really buggy and unpredictable, and the inconvenience of having to work in 48000 samples / sec really drove me mad. But, as a budget alternative it was usable.

Next, I purchased a M-audio Delta 410, a small-end card with 2 ins and 8 outs (with the digitals you get 4in, 10out, hence the name "410"). Oh, the clarity. Oh, the hassle-less-ness. Oh, the almost orgasmic feel of low-latency, high-fidelity Surround mixing.

Now, the Audigy is like $100 (maybe even less nowadays), and the 410 costs $350. I can personally vouch for the 410 as a rock-solid card, but if you wanna go for the Audigy, you MIGHT make it out alive. I've heard a lot of horror stories, though.

Thanks much for the infos about the M-Audio 410, I'll keep that in mind...
The price is also quite... Interesting... ;-)

Since I can not afford the product... for now, I went out and bought a second SB Live Card and set up Vegas to use one card for the Front and the other one for the Rear and guess what...
It works perfectly, no more channel "bleeding" !!!

Best of all, I don't have to deal with the ASIO thing, don't have to use WinXP nor do I have to convert everything to 48k...

Of course, it's certainly not the same sound quality as the 410, but it's a simple afordable solution at low cost !!! {:-)

Thanks again for the help guys...

Uhm, what about the center and sub channel? Wouldn't that require a third Live! card?

Yes it would, but the Sound system connected to the PC is only a 4.1, so I don't realy have to bother much about the 3rd card for now...

The sound system figures out by itself the frequency range to send to the SubSpeaker...

It ain't the ideal solution, BUT, as I said, it's a simple solution at low cost !!! ;-)

At least, it alows me to monitor "the corner speakers" and since I'm only using the device for music purposes, I don't realy feel the need for a middle speaker...

Ah, then I follow you. Yeah, I guess the corner speakers are the fundamentals for learning surround mixing. The rest come in later on.

WAIT TILL YOU GET THAT CENTER CHANNEL!! THEN ADD THE DEDICATED LFE AND ALL THE WALLS WILL DISAPEARE IN YOUR ROOM!!
/ITS AMAZING

Ouch! You would have been better served to download the KX ASIO drivers for the SBLive! (Do a search on KX ASIO.)

These drivers expose the front and rear channels directly.

Note: The problem with using two cards is they will NEVER be in sync with each other. The SB cards are only doing 48 kHz so Windows will be "resampling" on the fly causing all kinds of other problems.

Peter

Speaking of ouch...

I've tried the KX project drivers on my SB/Live, and I would not recommend them unless you have a lot of time to kill for tweaking and twitching. As far as ASIO goes, the KX drivers delivered shockingly low latency (even better than my current UA-5), but the sound card didn't do ANYTHING else right - things would work fine for about 3 minutes, and then the sound card would begin losing its mind: all sound might completely disappear, and/or sometimes it would default to primitive "PC speaker" beeps and tones. Then the inevitable reboot. Repeat ad nauseum.

One full evening of this was enough for me, but I'm sure the KX drivers can provide great overall performance to SB/live cards if you're willing to invest the time to get it. I took the easier route and bought better I/O. No more bubble gum and bailer twine, and I'm much happier now. :)

-momo